Refugees and immigration

The City East Mentor Program is meeting an unmet need that supports the integration of skilled migrants and refugees into the workforce, enables them to have career continuity and fosters social connectedness and wellbeing.

The Program matches skilled migrants and refugees with volunteer mentors who use their knowledge and experience of the Australian workplace to support and empower mentees in their search for work in their profession. By being matched with a professional mentor, participants feel empowered and supported. The mentor can introduce both social and professional networks which otherwise would not be available to them and provide invaluable assistance during a challenging transition period.

The mentoring commitment is for 6 months with contact once per week or fortnight. Mentoring sessions are according to need and could include sharing information and assistance with resume or cover letter; interview skills; professional networks; main employers and recruiters; Australian workplace culture. This provides invaluable support to the mentee and assists their transition into work and life in Australia. The program is designed to be mutually beneficial to both mentees and mentors. MORE >

What do you think about Australia’s current policies on asylum seekers? Would you like to see a deeper conversation about the issues around asylum seekers, conversations that take us somewhere new and help Australia make progress on this issue.

A small group of us – including SLA alumni and others – has started working together on creating opportunities for people to be part of a deeper dialogue. We are thinking about holding events, or doing work with media (social media, mainstream media), to get people with different ideas and approaches to the issues talking, learning from each other, and trying to generate new options together.

We’ve run a trial event using the Deliberative World Cafe method, we’re planning our next activities now and we are looking for new people to join us. We aren’t looking for experts in asylum seeker policy, just people who want to contribute to a deeper conversation on these issues.

If you are interested in contributing some time and thinking, please let me know.

SVA Consulting Quarterly Sept issue on Measurement & Evaluation features an interview with Tris Lumley, from New Philanthropy Capital in the UK, who calls on non-profit leaders to hold to and measure against clear goals.

He says that leaders need to be brave and stand by their goals and not be swayed by funders.

"It is up to the chief executive or the boards to say, ‘We need to do this stuff because it’s right, because we’re here to do the best job we possibly can for the people we are trying to help.'...

"There needs to be more focus on the brave leaders who are going to push this forward, who will communicate failures and what they’ve learnt from them, or turn down funding because it takes them away from their theory of change."

What do you think about Australia’s current policies on asylum seekers? Would you like to see a deeper conversation about the issues around asylum seekers, conversations that take us somewhere new and help Australia make progress on this issue?

A small group of us – including SLA alumni and others – has started working together on creating opportunities for people to be part of a deeper dialogue. We are thinking about holding events, or doing work with media (social media, mainstream media), to get people with different ideas and approaches to the issues talking, learning from each other, and trying to generate new options together.

We’ve run a trial event using the Deliberative World Cafe method, we’re planning our next activities now and we are looking for new people to join us. We aren’t looking for experts in asylum seeker policy, just people who want to contribute to a deeper conversation on these issues.

If you are interested in contributing some time and thinking, please let me know.

Hi folks - here is a short video about a project with which I am involved.... doing important work. Project Australia is raising funds to publish a book to help Australia Not-For-Profit/Community groups Start, Scale and Sustain wonderful life changing projects. Can you help with a donation ? Go here : http://startsomegood.com/handbook

Australia’s first and oldest charity, The Benevolent Society is celebrating our 200th birthday on 8 May 2013!

We are marking our 200 year history of helping people change their lives and driving social change.

The Benevolent Society was founded in Sydney in 1813 and fought for many social supports Australians take for granted today, including free legal aid, the old age pension, the end of child labour and high quality maternity care.

Come down to Martin Place where our world-first convertible mobile kitchen will be set up and join the celebrations.

As you are may be aware, The Benevolent Society is launching the Race for Change - a corporate team bike race established in 2013 to celebrate our 200 years anniversary! This is targeted at teams of keen cyclists in the corporate world but could also be of interest to others. Teams will race against each other and raise money for The Benevolent Society while doing so!

Please pass this on to your network to encourage more teams to register and raise $$.

This one-day conference will explore ‘complex needs’. By adopting a critical inter-disciplinary analysis, conference presenters will explore the multiple needs of criminal justice and human service clients more broadly.